Henry
David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. He was the
son of John and Cynthia Thoreau, and the third of four children. Out of his
two sisters and a brother, Helen was the oldest sister, John Thoreau Jr. was
Henry's older brother and Sophia was the younger sister. The house they were
born in belonged to his maternal grandmother and is located on the outskirts
of Concord on Virginia Road.

Henry was named after his paternal uncle, David Thoreau, who died just six
weeks after Henry was born. However, his legal name is not Henry David Thoreau
but rather 'David Henry Thoreau'. It wasn't until after Thoreau had graduated
from Harvard College that he unilaterally changed his name from David Henry
to 'Henry David' Thoreau. Not out of character, he never bothered to petition
the state legislature to have his name legally and officially changed.

Henry spent the majority of his time walking in and around the town of Concord,
although he did make a few journeys to other places. Occasionally he would be
found sauntering and conversing with his mentor and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson
or Ellery Channing.

Some believe Henry went to live at Walden Pond because he was a hermit or
a recluse or because he hated his fellow man, but this is not the case. Henry
had a very special and sincere reason to go to Walden Pond; to honor his brother.
On January 11, 1842, Henry's brother, John Jr., died of lockjaw. It was his
brother's death which prompted him to decide to go to Walden Pond. Ralph Waldo
Emerson, the great "Sage of Concord", owned land adjacent to Walden Pond and
allowed Henry to live at Walden Pond. Henry went to Walden Pond to work on a
book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers which would be a tribute to
John Thoreau Jr. He stayed at Walden Pond for two years, two months and two
days. He wanted to live his life deliberately, so he went and built a simple
cabin at Walden Pond. As he explains in "Walden":

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only
the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Henry left his nearby town of Concord to live at Walden Pond on July 4, 1845,
Independence Day. Some have speculated that this date represents his personal
declaration of independence from society. Others have pointed out that July
4th was the day before his brother's birthday. By leaving for Walden on July
4th, Independence Day, Henry would have spent his first full day at Walden Pond
on the anniversary of his brother's birthday. This idea is further supported
in "Walden":

"When I first took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my
nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence day, or
the fourth of July, 1845..."

Ralph Waldo Emerson provided Thoreau with the opportunity to complete his
first work, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" and the first draft
of a Thoreau's uniquely American work, "Walden; or Life in the Woods". "Walden",
as it is more commonly and popularly known, is Thoreau's response to a multitude
of questions he received as a result of living two years, two months, and two
days in his small cabin in the woods at Walden Pond.

Although many believe Thoreau was a recluse, he was no stranger to society
while he lived at the Pond. He had frequent dinners with family and friends,
and also had friends and the occasional curious neighbor visit him at his cabin.
He explains;

"I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship,
three for society."

In late July of 1846, a little more than one year into Henry's excursion to
Walden Pond, he needed to get his shoe repaired. He walked into Concord to get
the hole in his shoe repaired but as he was leaving the cobbler's store, Sam
Staples, the town constable, asked him to pay his poll tax. He was intentionally
several years behind in paying his tax. When asked to pay up, Thoreau flat out
refused to pay the poll tax. He objected to the use of the revenues of this
poll tax, which were to help finance the United States' war with Mexico and
to support the enforcement of slavery laws.

Henry refused to pay his taxes and refused the offers made by Sam Staples
himself to pay the tax. Since he refused to have his tax paid, Sam Staples was
required to take him to jail. Henry spent that night in jail. During that evening
however, someone heard that Henry was in jail and paid the taxes owed. No one
really knows for sure who paid the tax, but most believe it was Henry's Aunt
Maria Thoreau.

When Sam Staples found out that Thoreau's taxes were paid it was after he
had taken off his boots for the evening, so he decided to release Henry in the
morning. Henry should have never spent the night in jail have since the state
no longer had a reason to hold him.

As he found out that his tax had been paid he was outraged and wanted to remain
in jail. His argument was that since he himself was not the one who paid the
taxes he still deserved to be in jail. The evening he spent in jail prompted
him to write what became one of his most famous essays and one of the most important
political essays ever, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience." It is in "Civil
Disobedience" that Henry asks all of us to question our actions and the actions
of our state. He writes;

"Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor
to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress
them at once? ...I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves abolitionsists
should at once effectively withdraw their support, both in person and property,
from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority
of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them ...Moreover, any
man more right than his neighbors, consitutes a majority of one already."

"Civil Disobedience" and Henry David Thoreau have had great impact on the
lives of some of America's greatest leaders. President John F. Kennedy, Martin
Luther King, Jr., and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglass were all influenced
by Henry David Thoreau's thoughts.

Henry Thoreau left his cabin at Walden Pond on September 6, 1847. His book,
"Walden", was published several years and seven versions later in 1854. As the
writer got older, his attentions turned more towards the observing and recording
of natural history in Concord. He kept very thourough journals of natural history
and the citizens of Concord regarded him as the town naturalist and would ask
him many questions regarding nature, or call on him to identify interesting
creatures and plants.

Many scholars consider Henry David Thoreau to be the father of the American
conservation and preservation movements. The essay heralding Thoreau's ideas
of conservation and preservation is "Walking". In his essay "Walking" he claims:

"To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for
them to dwell in or resort to" and "...in Wildness is the preservation of the
world."

Henry David Thoreau died May 6th 1862, after suffering of a prolonged case
of tuberculosis, a disease which had plagued him throughout most of his adult
life.